


Marmalade Sandwiches

by TheEvangelion



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: BAMF Lena Luthor, Bittersweet, Character Death, F/F, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Homophobia, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Protective Lena Luthor, ReignCorp, Romance, Sad, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 02:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15086636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEvangelion/pseuds/TheEvangelion
Summary: Lena has to deal with homophobia after her step-daughter, Ruby, comes home from school very upset with one of her teachers. Lena always thought she was one of the lucky ones who had never had to deal with their hatred, their bigotry, their misguidedness up close. She especially never thought she'd be dealing with it now after the passing of her late wife. Still, loving Sam taught her the power of humility and grace, perhaps it is a lesson she might be able to teach somebody else.A touching story from your favourite slut.





	Marmalade Sandwiches

“Is mom in Hell?”

The question caught Lena by surprise as she stood over the toaster. Things were already hectic this morning. A meeting for an exciting new non-profit start up that she was already late for, a stepdaughter who needed feeding before school, a coffee date with the girls that she really didn’t have time for but promised dutifully she would attend, and now a gut-winding reminder that left her clenching the countertop that there was no longer a wife to come home to and commiserate with over these tiny lovely inconveniences.

Lena heard the terrifying question and felt a sharp pain in her aching heart that had become somewhat of a frequency over the last fourteen months. It was the little things that were capable of earning it. The terrible tangy marmalade she still instinctively reached for on the bottom shelf at the store until she remembered there would be no sandwiches needed to be made for Sam’s lunch. The stride halting moment in the street when a stranger walked past with the same perfume. The aftermath of a good laugh that her late wife would have enjoyed too. 

But when the pain came, soon after, so did the smile. It was hard to smile at first, in fact she resented the mere idea of it. Though things were different now. To remember was to keep Sam alive in some small way. To smile was to imbue the sharp grief of her death with a beauty that could only come from loving someone as tenderly as they loved one another. In her deepest hopes if she lead by example then perhaps Ruby would learn to smile too. And so with every clench of her heart, with every breath-taking instance of grief, she pushed her crimson lips into a smile and chose to feel the immense joy of Sam’s life instead.

Lena unwound her fingers from the counter and gathered herself quickly, she turned and forced herself to remain composed in the strikingly innocent face of her eleven year old stepdaughter. It was a difficult task, the smile was not possible this time, but composed she remained.

“What happened wasn’t something your mom chose, Rubes,” Lena started softly with a quirk of her brows, unsure on what else to say. “It was like an illness… something your mother didn’t ask for and tried very hard to stop. And so if there is a God I don’t think he or she would punish your mom for what happened. She tried very hard to stop Reign and when she couldn’t she did what she had to do to protect all of us.” Lena paused and ran her teeth over the inside of her lip, lowering her voice, “But I guess that doesn’t make it hurt any less, right?” She whispered with an empathetic smile.

“I know all of that,” Ruby said with a shake of her head, unsatisfied with the explanation.

“Then why would you ever think your mom is in Hell?” Lena raised a confused brow and set a hand on her hip.

Ruby lowered her head and stirred the last few cheerios around with her spoon. For a moment Lena didn’t think she would reply at all, but slowly, surely enough, she raised her face again with a painful tremble of her bottom lip.

“Mrs Little said that gay people go to Hell and she said that it was very sad but very important that we understand God’s rules because they’re there to make our lives as happy as they can be… I didn’t really think about it at first but do you think Reign came because Mom needed to be punished? I… I just don’t want you to be punished too, that’s all, Lena.” Ruby eyed her cautiously.

Lena blinked and swallowed the boulder in her throat. Here it finally was. Sam always did say she got off lucky, that she was one of the few who had never had to deal with the ugliness of their hate up close.  Maybe that had something to do with finding Sam later in life. When she was younger, before she realised the correlation, the lack of love life was put down to an obsession with her work. The laboratory was her lover. The office her mistress. Then Sam came stumbling back into her life with a smile she never did learn how to resist and an impossibly curious four year old in tow and things just wonderfully clicked together. Lena had trained herself to embrace the grief, to turn it into something beautiful, but this was so different. This was their little girl being filled with terrible ideas that the selflessness and bravery of her mother should be a meritless thing in the eyes of a God so small he would punish her for daring to love and be loved in return. Lena felt the bile in her stomach grow violent and choppy at the mere thought.

“Well that’s a crock of shit,” Lena said dumbly with a scratch of her jet black hair.

“That’s a bad word. Mom doesn’t like it when you use bad words around me,” Ruby reminded.

“Even bad words have their uses, I think she would let me off this time.”

“Mom never let you off for using bad words.”

“Very true.”

“Is Mrs Little right?”

“No. Mrs Little is an evil despicable woman, Ruby,” Lena murmured and found herself at a loss.

“Mrs Little is nice!” Ruby replied in equal measures of hurt and surprise, her young eyes narrowing with judgement. “When I went back to school she spent time with me and we made posters so I would learn all about the things I missed. She coaches the spelling bee team and she still lets us get cheeseburgers afterwards even when we lose, she’s my favourite teacher. You’re wrong, Lena.”

“Ruby—please—do not back talk me right now,” Lena mumbled and rubbed the side of her head. “Just this once?” She looked up hopefully with a bunched cheek.

She had read once that one of the greatest acts of motherhood was the attempt to raise your daughter to be a better woman than you yourself knew how to be. One of the things she wished most for the young girl was the ability to show strength through grace, to show her power through kindness, to be wise in a way that didn’t come naturally to Lena. She had never thought about it much until Sam died. Up until then she had never been required to think about it at all. Then the monumental responsibility of raising Ruby fell into her lap and the lucid moments in the immediate aftermath of widowhood were spent pouring over tear-stained parenting books with dog-eared corners in an attempt to be the kind of mother deserving of the last gift Sam gave her. Now, raising Ruby was all she thought about…and also all the ways that she could get it so terribly wrong too.

“It’s your fault she’s in Hell,” Ruby murmured in frustration.

“Excuse me?” Lena shot her a glare. “What did you just say to me, young lady?”

“I said it is your fault! All of it!”

“How dare you!” Lena snapped with a wretched shout. 

The pain of it shook her hands. It made her knees tremble. It made the muscles in her neck taut with fury. That one single sentence was enough to break her in a way that Sam’s death never did. Ruby threw her head down with a quiet sob that she tried desperately to hold back. Lena watched her try to stir her cereal as if she wasn’t splintering inside too, her clenched lips wobbling, her knuckles tight around the spoon. Ruby was as stubborn as her mother and it only made Lena’s heart thrum with guilt all the more.

“We don’t say things like that in this home and you do not speak to me that way,” Lena said with a sigh, her voice wavering although now calm.

“You’re not my mother and you don’t need to act like you are,” Ruby retorted angrily and crossed her arms.

“Well I might not be your mom but you are my daughter and I have the headache to prove it,” Lena bristled and reached for her keys. “Now, put your coat on please we need to go. I want you to tell Mrs Little I will be paying her a visit this evening, we’re going to get to the bottom of all of this.”

…

The academy looked ancient during the late afternoon. It was dusky and bright out, the school sat proud on the hill like an old and mighty castle with golden leafed trees lining the sides of the long driveway towards the yard of the private school. All of the Luthor women came here at one point or another as either day girls or full-time boarders and Lena was no different. It was her happy memories filled with the smell of white chalk and old chuckling nuns pottering around the corridors that she used to convince Sam that Ruby would have the greatest adventures at Sacred Heart Ladies Academy too.

The phone in her hand buzzed with good news from the meeting she had apologetically left early to make sure she was here on time. Lena pocketed the phone after a quick glance and adjusted her hair in the rear view mirror. She opened the door and made the slow walk over the clean white gravel towards the grand overbearing doors of the school as young school girls skipped and dodged out of her way towards their boarding houses, she was already brimming and seething with ideas of the things she would say to that despicable woman.

“You were the one who wanted to send her here,” Lena imagined Sam murmuring it quietly in her ear with a tisk.

“Well I wanted us to have a bond to share, being a Sacred Heart girl is a sisterhood,” Lena retorted in her mind as her black high heels clipped down the reception hallway.

“What are you going to say?”

“I don’t know, something regrettable?”

“I would have handled this a lot smoother than you.”

“I know,” Lena sighed aloud and wrinkled her brow.

A young woman turned around as she took the first two step on the staircase. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-three, probably a teaching assistant Lena decided. “Know what?” The young woman  asked with a curious tilt of the head.

“Pardon?” Lena blinked and stood still.

“You said ‘I know,’ and then I asked: what do you know?” She grinned.

“Oh, er, sorry.” Lena waved it off and chuckled uncomfortably, “I was just thinking aloud. Silly of me, really.” She fiddled and adjusted the purse slung over her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say that.” The girl tucked a long blonde weft behind her ear and shuffled the books cradled in her arm so she could extend her hand, “Kara Danvers,” she said as Lena accepted the handshake tentatively.

“Lena,” she replied with a short nod.

“Ah, Lena Luthor in the flesh.” Kara seemed impressed as she retracted the hand and stuck it in her back pocket.

“Ah…Don’t tell me they still keep my sports picture on the wall?” Lena blushed and grimaced simultaneously.

“Oh of course they do,” Kara chuckled. “Most of your records haven’t been beaten. Ruby is hoping it stays that way until she’s a freshman, she wants to be the one to take you out.” She lifted an impressed eyebrow.

“You know my Ruby then?” Lena couldn’t help but feel relieved that the subject had moved on to something she was far more interested in talking about.

“Oh, she’s a popular day girl with the students and teachers,” Kara reassured. “I help out in her classroom, she’s my go to girl for all things chemistry related. I am not embarrassed to admit that I know less than a ten year old when it comes to chemical engineering.”

“Huh,” Lena quirked her brows in pleasant surprise. “Maybe she does listen to some of the things I say after all?”

“Maybe so. I’m also told you know Supergirl, that must be an interesting friendship?” Kara seemed a little off, her stare darting away and a blush emerging on her cheeks. A girl crush, Lena supposed.

“Business only. I’ve met her once or twice, sure, but we certainly don’t go for cocktails or give each other Netflix recommendations,” Lena played it down with a wave of her hand.

“Are you here to pick Ruby up?” Kara glanced to the large clock face on the wall above the staircase with a squint through her glasses. “You’re a little early but I can take you to her tutor’s classroom? They should just be finishing up their French homework.”

“That would be kind, I’m here to see Mrs Little. I think she’s Ruby’s tutor?”

“Even better! You’re one of Mrs Little’s favourite students. I think she talks about you nearly as much as Ruby does.” Kara laughed and turned back around, “Come on, I’ll take you over there.”

Lena didn’t know how to respond. She blinked and found herself stuck in confusion for a moment as she followed the chirpy teaching assistant up the winding staircase. One of Mrs Little’s favourite students? She wasn’t sure what that meant. When she was a student there wasn’t a Mrs Little, or at least one that left a lasting impression.

The question was one that didn’t go unanswered for very long. They walked past several classrooms along the west wing until they eventually reached a large oak door with her name inscribed into the worn golden plaque hung above. They nudged the door open to the classroom and Lena landed her eyes on the teacher sat behind her desk.

“Sister Margaret!” Lena burst in surprise.

The woman was perhaps in her late fifties, her luminous bright ginger hair now a silvering strawberry blonde, those soft freckled cheeks suddenly a collection of wrinkles and laughter lines. The habit and simple grey cardigan were done away with, replaced instead by a long floral dress and a golden band on her weathered ring finger. Lena found herself overcome with happy memories. Sister Margaret was like a mother. The first face she laid eyes on after her parents kissed her on the cheek and returned to the car on that first day of the school semester. Lena remembered the day well and the night even better, she laid curled up in her bunk bed crying and homesick right into the early hours of the next morning. Sister Margaret was there; armed with her tender smile and a hot cup of chocolate with extra marshmallows until things didn’t feel so bad anymore. In fact, Lena was hard pressed to find a happy school memory where Sister Margaret wasn’t in the background.

“Lena!” Sister Margaret jumped out of her seat with a beaming smile and rushed over for a hug that nearly knocked the wind out of Lena’s chest. “If it isn’t my favourite student! After all of these years!” She leaned back and looked her up and down gleefully.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Lena muttered and felt herself become stuck and conflicted. “You left in my senior year, Sister?”

“Oh I gave up the habit a long time ago now. I came back to teach after a few years of home life but it’s just plain old Mrs Little now,” she said with that same warm smile and patted Lena’s hand. “Girls,” she said sharply over her shoulder, suddenly remembering the classroom. “I want you all to meet Miss Luthor before you leave, she is by far my most outstanding pupil and a shining example of what it means to be a Sacred Heart girl.”

“Hello Miss Luthor,” the entire classroom chirped in unison.

“It’s Mrs Luthor, actually,” Lena corrected with an awkward laugh and rubbed the back of her neck. 

Technically, it wasn’t Mrs Luthor anymore and that didn’t go amiss upon her. It stopped being Mrs Luthor a while ago. Nonetheless she liked the way it made her feel, the way it reminded her of the vows she took, and so she stood by the correction.

“Isn’t that your other mom, Ruby?” A girl in the back said quietly.

“Her guardian, yes,” Mrs Little interrupted briskly before Ruby could reply from her desk in the corner. Lena felt her stomach clench around that word and refuse it. She wasn’t a guardian, she was a parent. Ruby wasn’t a thing that landed in her lap by accident, she was a gift that was gladly accepted. A decision she made everyday. A promise she would always keep. It left Lena blinking back a silent sort of fury.

“Ruby is my daughter,” Lena confirmed to the classroom with a proud and defiant nod. She slipped her eyes across the audience in front of her until she landed on her blushing embarrassed stepdaughter in the corner. Slowly, Ruby quirked a smile back. It gave Lena the strength she needed. “I know you guys hear this all the time but being a Sacred Heart girl really is a sisterhood and so I guess we’re all family, right?” She laughed uncomfortably and looked back to the teacher beside her.

“And no matter how far we all journey into the world that sisterhood can never be broken, family always loves one another,” Mrs Little reassured with a small smile directed at Lena. “You’re dismissed early ladies, day girls may go to the library until their parents are here and board girls you are to return to your house mothers for dinner.”

“Yes Mrs Little,” the choir rose and quickly threw on their navy blazers and school bags as they ran excitedly for the door.

“Ruby mentioned during register that you wanted to see me. I don’t suppose you mind if Kara finishes preparing the class project?” Mrs Little turned and dropped her voice to a cautious whisper.

“Not at all, I have nothing to discuss that is a private matter,” Lena said assertively.

At that Kara offered them both a polite nod and scooted past them towards the back of the room. There was a large bare board on the rear wall with sugar paper and colourful handmade posters waiting to be stapled on. Lena watched the girl out of the corner of her eye as Ruby finally dragged herself over.

“Can I go to the library with my friends?” Ruby asked hopefully with her mother’s big brown eyes that were so hard to say no to.

“I’d like you to stay,” Lena slipped an arm around her stiff shoulders. “It’s important to me that you hear what Mrs Little and I are going to discuss,” she dropped her voice quietly.

“I don’t want to be here if you’re going to get angry.”

“I’m not going to get angry,” Lena promised. Mrs Little seemed taken aback, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion as she sat down at her desk. “I promise I’m not here to shout, Sister Mar—I mean Mrs Little. I just have some things I’d like to discuss.” Lena forced a reassuring smile, suppressing the urge to bite.

“Hey Ruby,” Kara called from the back of the classroom. “Do you want to help me with the project board?”

“Thank you,” Lena turned and mouthed as Ruby scampered towards the back.

“Don’t worry,” Kara mouthed back and dismissed it with a smile.

“I have to say Lena I’m surprised you’re here to see me under what could seemingly be described as not the best of terms?” Mrs Little said.

Lena sat down on the leather backed chair opposite her desk. It struck her how familiar this was. When she was a child she would scamper to Sister Margaret’s classroom between activities just to steal a cookie and spend a little time with her. Sometimes they sat here in perfect silence while Sister Margaret marked the homework or went through her teaching plan. Other times they talked about which animals were the strangest of God’s creations. Lena thought it was the jellyfish, Sister Margaret always seemed to think it was the dragonfly. They never did manage to find a resolution to that disagreement but in her deepest most private thoughts Lena hoped they might be able to come to a resolution on this one.

“You seem upset, Lena?” Mrs Little spoke again with a curious look on her face.

“I suppose that’s putting it mildly,” Lena said awkwardly.

“What is the problem?”

“Ruby asked me a question this morning.” Lena turned over her shoulder and peered at the young girl busying herself with colourful sugar paper. She couldn’t help but see all of the Sam brimming within her. It only made the hurt worse and her smile wider. Lena turned back and dimmed her smile into a straight lipped expression, “Ruby wanted to know if her mother was in Hell because of some of things that you had to say about gay people, Mrs Little.”

“Not things I have to say, dear Lena.” Mrs Little softened into a pained and empathetic expression, her voice fraught with a splintering kind of ache. “These are the words of God. The commandments and promises of a Lord so mighty we may not understand his ways at times and think them cruel but must always trust that the picture is more beautiful and bigger than we can fathom.”

Lena swallowed and felt a sharp pinching sensation on her knees. She looked down and saw her own fingers doing the deed, searing half crescent moons through the material of her dress from her clenching.

“What _possessed_ you.” Lena stopped suddenly, aware her tone was becoming severe and violent. She reminded herself of the promise she had made and exhaled a sigh. “Why would you say that to a little girl who has lost her mother? Why would you inflict that kind of hurt on a child?”

Mrs Little sat back thoughtfully and paused for a moment. There was no hate in her eyes, none of the arrogance that Sam had promised always came when arguing with the opposite side. Instead there was just a sadness that moved and ebbed between them: the searing grief of a wife lost and the monumental tragedy of a belief of where she ended up.

“I have many little girls, Lena. I should think that above all things we can understand that about one another.” Mrs Little smiled kindly, “The love, the devotion, the tiny part of our heart we sacrifice when we take another woman’s daughter and love her as if she is our own. In that regard I’ve had hundreds of daughters in my life, you being one of them, and it is my job to raise every one of them as God wishes for them to be raised… even when the lessons I must teach are difficult ones. It doesn’t always bring me comfort but the toughest jobs rarely do.”

“If you think of me as a daughter then how can you look me in the eyes and believe that I am going to burn in Hell?” Lena shrivelled at the thought.

“I try not to think about that,” Mrs Little grew flustered with crimson cheeks and uncertain of where to look. “Nobody is sinless and I pray for all of my girls who have gone out into the world and lost their way. I pray for them to repent and for the ones who do not before it is too late I pray for them to be forgiven… and I always save a prayer for you, Lena, always.”

“You can keep your prayers,” Lena scoffed and adjusted herself.

“You don’t see it and I suppose you cannot, you’ve blinded yourself to the spirit that lives in and around us. But I believe God brought you back to me so that we may have this conversation, so that you may repent and see how beautiful your life could be at the end of this suffering. There is a kingdom that wants to receive you in the next world that is so much _grander_ than the sacrifices we must make in this one.”

“There is no kingdom without her there. And so I, for one, Sister Margaret, think you are so fucking misguided.” Lena felt her voice crack and splinter. She closed her eyes and didn’t dare to turn around as the sound of rustling sugar paper ceased, instead, she just licked her lips and forced a tiny smile into the bitter sharpness of her grief. Lena continued, “If God is real, then I promise you that the kingdom of Heaven is a cool Sunday morning with a plate of awful marmalade sandwiches spilling from the sides and a crossword puzzle in front of two chairs that have had our names scored into the backs since the dawn of time, Sister Margaret. Loving my wife was not a sin. _Her life_ was not a sin. Every moment of it dripped with divine purpose.”

Mrs Little remained quiet for a moment while the room pulsed with the aftermath of the outburst. Her eyes glistened with empathy and sorrow, and it only made Lena ache all the more. It would be easy to hate her if she was an evil woman, if she was a person who revelled in the thought of an eternal damnation, but those things she was not. Mrs Little was just a woman, a teacher, a cornerstone in the bedrock of her own childhood. Lena couldn’t help but hold on to the tiny hope that maybe a flicker of understanding could be found between them.

“I am sorry that this has hurt you.” Mrs Little stopped and chewed her mouth, “I am sorry that we no longer believe the same things because you are and _always will be_ the most special of my little girls. Most of all I’m sorry that I cannot give you what you wish for and tell you something other than what God has commanded of us.” Mrs Little offered a kind smile and glanced away, “I hope that you can forgive God and in turn let him forgive you because his love is mighty, Lena.”

“I know that.” Lena swallowed and wiped her eye before the tear could brim. “I have nothing to forgive God for, Sister Margaret.”

“Well you’re obviously in a lot of pain.”

“Yep, it does hurt a lot.” Lena nodded with a wobble of her chin and shifted to the edge of her seat. “It hurts every single day that she is not here but if there is a God I refuse to believe he snatched my wife away to punish me.” Lena shook her head in mortification at the mere idea. “He gave me six wonderful years with a woman I swore to cherish until my dying breath and a whip smart daughter who makes me strive to be a better woman everyday because every time I look in her eyes I see the possibilities of a world I want to leave behind for her. I wanted to grow old with my wife but I got six years instead, and it’s sad, it hurts more than I think I can bare sometimes, but oh boy were they six good years.” Lena laughed and wiped her tears on her sleeve. “So it’s me that’s sorry. I’m sorry that you are so stuck in the words of ancient men that you cannot see that something bigger than this world bound the lives of my wife and I together, for better or for worse.”

Lena stilled into the feeling of a small hand clasping her shoulder. The fingers tucked around her collarbone, the thumb squeezing tightly into her skin. She slipped her own hand over Ruby’s fingers and patted her knuckles softly.

“Do you want to go home?” Ruby whispered quietly.

Lena couldn’t help but crack a smile even though the pain was more acute than it had been in a while. “No monkey,” she wiped a single tear and steadied herself with a sigh. “Let’s go get ice cream. I think I would like that.” She stood up and reached for her purse.

“Lena,” Mrs Little said quickly as she rose from her chair too. “Please don’t think of me cruel or unsympathetic… I hope you can find it in your heart to see the compassion in mine.”

“I will pray for you, Sister Margaret,” Lena said with a smile and polite nod.

Lena slipped her arm around the little girl beside her with a quick squeeze and walked to the door. In the back of her mind, in the most silent of her thoughts, she heard the soft and impressed laughter of her wife.

“Lena?” Ruby looked up at her with an apologetic stare as they navigated the overbearing hallway.

“Yeah Monkey?”

“I’m sorry, for what I said this morning.”

“Me too.”

“You’re a good mom.” Ruby squeezed her hand tight.

Lena felt a different sort of tear roll down her cheek and couldn’t help but bite the ghost of a smile the whole way back to the car.

“Hey! Wait up!” A puffed out voice hollered as they slung their bags in the back passenger seat. Lena turned and caught Kara jogging over to them. “Hey I’m sorry it’s just, wow,” Kara paused and caught here breath. “Hi,” she said with a smile, blinking.

“Hi,” Lena chuckled.

“What you said back there? Just…wow,” Kara inhaled and paused. “I just want you to know that we’re not all like that, you know? I can keep an eye on Ruby and make sure she doesn’t have to hear stuff like that. I’d like to do that.” She smiled kindly.

“That’s really kind, thank you,” Lena said curtly and tried not to blush.

“So, you guys going for ice cream?”

“That’s the plan,” Lena answered and patted Ruby’s shoulder.

“You got room for one more?” Kara asked with a tilt of her head. “I have an assignment I’m working on for my chemical engineering class and I thought maybe you and Ruby could take a look at it for me? What do you think?”

Lena paused and looked down at her step-daughter, biting the inside of her cheek. “What do you think Rubes?”

“Well I do think you need more friends your own age.” Ruby grinned as Lena playfully pushed her shoulder and opened the car door a little wider. “You can sit in the back with me Kara, get in!”

 

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